CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Waiting for my parent's go-ahead with my studies wasn't like waiting for the final puzzle piece, it was like waiting for the axe to fall. When I told Sammy how I felt she just shrugged, she wasn't sure why I couldn't just go home and finish my studies before taking a gap year. When I told David, he told me that all I could do was wait.
There wasn't anything anyone could do to help me in this situation, I was really on my own. I was the one who made this choice, so I was the one who had to live with the consequences if it didn't work out. This was my life, after all.
Just because the Irish university had accepted me didn't mean I couldn't go back to my American university at the end of the semester. I hadn't told them I wouldn't be coming back and as a result, they thought I was automatically.
It suited me fine to have both universities waiting for me to begin, as I was also waiting. I hated waiting. Not only was I impatient by nature but the feeling of being in limbo was more than I could bare.
I passed the time like anyone in Ireland would pass it. I spent plenty of time in the pub, having pint after pint of cider with my friends, or with David. We still went to the same pub where we usually went to avoid being seen. I didn't like that we still went there, but didn't see any real point in causing an issue. I needed this man's support more than anything right now, adrift in the adult world as I was.
Before I had gone on this semester abroad program, my university had a seminar that they forced everyone who was participating in the semester abroad program to undertake.
I say we were forced, but it was a really interesting and helpful seminar. They talked about things like culture shock and home sickness, how we would all go about creating support networks abroad, how to make friends when you were somewhere for a very short period of time. They helped me fill in the gaps in my knowledge.
Of course it was difficult to go on a semester abroad, it had its own challenges. The university had sold everyone on how exciting it was, as if we were all going on some big holiday where we wouldn't have to do any real college work. Now, we knew, we would have plenty of study to do in addition to having to settle into a new country.
This wasn't going to be easy, and it was frustrating that the university waited until the last possible moment to fill us in on the hard stuff.
Before I had left I had felt so nervous because of that last-moment seminar, even if they had expressed everything in as much of a positive light as they could.
When they did the seminar, too, something that stood out for me when I looked back was how they talked about the relationships you form when you are overseas and outside of your comfort zone. They talked about how being abroad impacts the way you are as a person.
"Some people come back and identify not only by a different name - like a nickname - but they also come back with a whole new identity. They have made changes in their sexuality or their gender because of people they met when they were away." The woman who was running the seminar told us.
Of course I loved the idea of meeting a man while I was away, but I hadn't expected it to happen and even if it did, I didn't expect anything like the kind of changes this woman was describing.
But it had happened, I had met someone. And the comments that I had previously found kind of strange now made perfect sense. Of course it was different when you met someone, of course when you met someone it change you. Of course when you met someone it changed the course you were previously on.
I was on a different course now, and although I kept telling myself I would still be on this course without him, I often quietly wondered if that was really the case. He had told me early on - very early on - that I should change my major, then I had changed it. He had been someone who I had merely wanted to have a fling with, now I was extending my stay and wanting to move in to his home.
Everything was upside down, and a bit of a mess, but it was a mess that made sense to me at least. It was a mess that I had been happy to deal with. A mess that I had - whether I wanted to admit to it or not - created for myself, and one I would need to deal with no matter what happened.
I didn't think too much about how I was still waiting when my university wrote to me to ask about my return flights. Apparently they needed you to have some booked by a certain date so you could come home and do some work for them. As part of accepting a place in a study abroad program, I had to agree that I would talk to other students about my experiences to promote the program to future students.
I had forgotten about this requirement, so when I wrote back to my university I was honest with them, letting them know I might stay a little longer than I had meant to originally. Quickly (for once) they responded to tell me they needed to know dates, when would I send those documents on?
That email sat in my inbox for a little while, untouched by me and disregarded. Then another came, and another. All the while I was waiting for paperwork to go through with the Irish university, then waiting for my parents to make a decision.
In the end, someone at the study abroad office called my Irish phone and asked me what the deal was.
There was no getting away from it then, I told the person that I might be transferring to the Irish university to finish my degree, but I wasn't sure yet.
Down the phone line, the office worker was clicking keys on a computer keyboard and sounding disinterested in our conversation. They were clearly only calling me because they had to. I answered their questions and they thanked me before hanging up the phone.
I had forgotten about the phone call when an email arrived in my inbox to tell me I was no longer a student at the American university as I had advised them about my transfer. I knew I had done nothing of the sort and that this was an administration error, but I shrugged it off. I had better things to worry about. More important things.
I took it as a sign and started to make plans for the next year in Ireland.
While all of this was happening, I was still living my normal life of spending time with friends at the pub and David and I were stealing time to be together whenever we could. We were both smitten and loving our lives together.
Since he knew I was staying now, David was inviting me into his life more all the time. I felt closer to his heart than I ever had before when he told me he would be talking to the head of department about our relationship. He was going to tell other people about us and it made me feel excited.
David was confident that there wouldn't be a problem and obviously he was confident enough with us to know he could approach his work about our relationship and tell them we were together as we were, and I wasn't going anywhere.
Meanwhile we spent plenty of time together as Daddy and baby girl in private. I found it relaxing to retreat into my baby girl self whenever I had a long day or was tired of adulting.
Daddy would have me come over to his house and change into overalls or a cute dress he'd bought me and sit on the floor colouring while he watched television.
Colouring was my favourite thing to do at Daddy's house (aside from all the hot sexytimes). I also enjoyed plenty of other little girl things like plushies, Disney films and foods with lots of sugar, glitter and colour.
Daddy would surprise me with little gifts sometimes. He would get me a cute little dress, a plushy, a new colouring book. All sorts of things! I enjoyed it because I always had something to use when I was at his house but also because it made him so happy to look after me.
He really did feel like a Daddy when he got all smiley over looking after his girl and I felt wonderful not only because I made him feel that way but also because I kind of liked it too.
If I had to tell someone a year before David and I met what I would want in a partner, David wouldn't have been what I described at all.
Twelve months ago I would have described someone much closer to my age who was likely a college student, American (or at least living in America) and I certainly wouldn't have described him as anything like a Daddy Dom.
But now we were here and we were dating it made perfect sense. I had the desire to be looked after, to be supported this way. It wasn't something I would have recognised on my own but now we were here together, I was recognising it. It took our relationship for me to know what I wanted and what I needed.
I still wasn't one hundred per cent sure how I should express all of this to Daddy, so I didn't try. I wasn't ready for that conversation yet, and with everything else that was going on at the time, I wasn't sure it was a great idea anyway.
Pretty soon, everything would come crashing down anyway and I wouldn't have ever anticipated what happened to happen, not really. Even though in my own mind I had imagined a worst case scenario multiple times when the world crumbled, it looked nothing how I thought it would look when it did finally happen.